New to sourdough, looking for assistance
Hi all! I've been reading through all the threads and it has been super interesting. I wanted to see if I could get some direct assistance with my sourdough... I'm new at this, and every loaf I have made so far has been a fail. Well they were tasty but the crumb was never right, sometimes gummy, sometimes the holes were huge... etc. My starter has been going since November. I keep a stiff starter and when I want to bake I do 30g starter, 120g water 130 flour. I've been making loaves with einkorn but they were very hard to get right. Now I've been experimenting with bread flour, AP or WW (or a mix) and still haven't been able to nail it. Today I'm following the Bread Code recipe (which everyone seems to love) but now that I'm bulk fermenting, it looks nothing like his. I'm just not really able to do any stretch and folds; it's just so stiff... I did a 67 ish % hydration (500g flour, 325g water 100g starter, I'm not very familiar with bakers math yet?) So I'm guessing there's not enough water? I'm confused to what it should look like.. do you always follow the math or you do it by feel? I fed my starter last night, this morning I did the autolyze.. then I added the starter to the flour and yeah its extremely hard to stretch... (even after waiting 1hr) What did I do wrong? Should I have added more water? I feel like even if I had added 20g more I would still be very tough.. What should I do now (it's been bulk fermenting for an hour so far and hasn't relaxed it seems) What should I do next time? Help!! I'm starting to get defeated! Thanks in advance!
Hi all! I've been reading through all the threads and it has been super interesting. I wanted to see if I could get some direct assistance with my sourdough... I'm new at this, and every loaf I have made so far has been a fail. Well they were tasty but the crumb was never right, sometimes gummy, sometimes the holes were huge... etc. My starter has been going since November. I keep a stiff starter and when I want to bake I do 30g starter, 120g water 130 flour. I've been making loaves with einkorn but they were very hard to get right. Now I've been experimenting with bread flour, AP or WW (or a mix) and still haven't been able to nail it. Today I'm following the Bread Code recipe (which everyone seems to love) but now that I'm bulk fermenting, it looks nothing like his. I'm just not really able to do any stretch and folds; it's just so stiff... I did a 67 ish % hydration (500g flour, 325g water 100g starter, I'm not very familiar with bakers math yet?) So I'm guessing there's not enough water? I'm confused to what it should look like.. do you always follow the math or you do it by feel? I fed my starter last night, this morning I did the autolyze.. then I added the starter to the flour and yeah its extremely hard to stretch... (even after waiting 1hr) What did I do wrong? Should I have added more water? I feel like even if I had added 20g more I would still be very tough.. What should I do now (it's been bulk fermenting for an hour so far and hasn't relaxed it seems) What should I do next time? Help!! I'm starting to get defeated! Thanks in advance!